Case: The Joint Commission 2007

2007

old logo

THE STORY

According to consultant Anthony Bennett, "The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is a non-profit dedicated to improving the quality and safety of care in United States health care organizations. Research showed that perceptions of The Joint Commission were lagging, and that while the non-profit had made significant steps to improve itself and its processes over the years, health care professionals' view of them hadn't changed at all. Moreover, the scope of activities that The Joint Commission was involved in had moved beyond only accreditation-related activities."

"Working with Onoma Design and brand consultancy Red Sky Insights, it was decided to change the logo to signal the major changes in The Joint Commission, and to clean up the brand architecture of its affiliate companies. The four triangles in the logo were chosen as they represent the Deming system of Plan, Do, Check, Act. They also represent the four protagonists involved in improving health care: the patient, the clinician, the health care organization and The Joint Commission."

Because the impossibly long formal name was generally reduced to the initials JCAHO, pronounced "Jayco," adoption of "The Joint Commission" as the preferred communicative name must be considered to be a name change... in essence, adoption of an existing brand (in p[lace of a weak name). "The" was included principally to discourage use of a "JC" abbreviation. The new name is also intended to play down the presence of "Accreditation" in the formal name, historically important but less so today, and limiting.

Unit names remain unchanged, but use of the lively but sophisticated abstract symbol (with some color changes) does a great job of pulling these units and functions together in a visual signature system, and adds the feeling of a driving purpose to their functional but otherwise uninspiring names.

The launch event was characterized as so low-profile as to be virtually non-existant (perhaps a lost opportunity).

CREDITS

Onoma Design (Roger van den Bergh)Red Sky Insights (Anthony Bennett)

CASE INFO

Submitted by: Tony Spaeth, 11/03/2008
Status: Confirmed by Anthony Bennett (Red Sky Insights), 13 March 2008
Category: Public service
Country (HQ): United States